NEWS$show=/search/label/news

Here's where you'll find all the latest news about technology for children. We love to follow cool new inventions on Kickstarter and we hunt out all the latest announcements about tech toys and gadgets for the coming Christmas holidays. You'll also get our take on children's technology stories in the media.

REVIEWS$show=/search/label/review

Our kids technology product reviews are intended to help you work out whether a toy, gadget or kit is a good fit for your child or family. There's lots of cool stuff available, but is it the right choice for the child or teenager that you are buying for? We'll help you make the right choices and get the best value for money.

GIFT GUIDES$show=/search/label/gift%20guide

Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends assemble. We create gift lists to help you make good choices for kids technology which helps them develop the right skills for the future. We research the best in Coding Toys and Games, Making / Craft Tools and Kits, STEM/STEAM related gifts, Programmable Robots, Electronics Kits and Gadgets for Tech Age Kids and Teens.

PROJECTS$show=/search/label/project

Get crafty with technology. Here we'll post all our ideas and projects using technology to get creative and making with kids. You'll find anything from making a lemon battery to a glow-in-the-dark Minecraft sword. Our projects are tried and tested on our own kids or at events we run, so we are sure you can have a go at home with your kids. Some of our projects use specific tech gadgets which we provide links for you to purchase.

STEM$show=/search/label/stem

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In recent years there is an increased focus in these areas of study. We like to include Art and Design too, so we often talk about STEAM (A stands for Art). At Tech Age Kids we believe Coding is a new literacy and children need to understand how technology works, practice making skills and grow in their curiosity to make a better future for us all.

CODING$show=/search/label/coding

Coding is increasingly being recognised as an important skill for children to learn. Some will learn to code at school or at a coding club, but it's brilliant if they get support at home too.

ELECTRONICS$show=/search/label/electronics

We think it's really important for kids to get hands-on with electronics and learn how to make circuits and write code to control hardware. Younger kids can start with conductive playdough. For kids who like to combine craft and tech, littleBits are fab. And we love SAM Labs wireless electronics components for making it easy for kids to make Internet of Things inventions. Lots of electronics kits for kids have support for the Arduino microprocessor environment. The DuinoKit Jr is one of our favourites. Arduino is a fab skill for older kids and teens to develop.

ROBOTICS$show=/search/label/robotics

We love robots at Tech Age Kids, especially programmable ones. We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them. Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available. Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots.

MAKING AND CRAFT$show=/search/label/making

We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun. The Maker Community uses the term 'making' as a broad term to include all sorts of artisan skills or craft activities. Being able to make things can lead to life-long hobbies or even careers. It's a great feeling to be able to take a project from an idea in your head to a real object that does something. We're particularly interested to explore products that combine maker skills with tech skills such as electronics but others focus purely on the physical making skills that are still important to modern making.

Rule Your Minecraft Room with littleBits


We've been exploring our littleBits Rule Your Room kit with our Minecraft papercraft world. littleBits lends itself nicely to craft with paper/cardboard and electronics adding movement, sounds, and lights to your makes.

Read our first impressions review of the littleBits Rule Your Room Kit. The kit comes with a brilliant Inventions Guidebook, that gives lots of fun ideas for projects to make with the kit. When we started to explore outside of the kit guidebook, I was tempted to reach for our other bits. However, in this post, we only used the bits in the Rule the Room kit to show you what else could do with the bits.


My youngest got a set of Minecraft Papercraft for his birthday last year. Our kids are huge Minecraft fans. I like the fact they can express that passion in a screenless activity too.

Minecraft Paper World with littleBits

littleBits and Papercraft Minecraft worlds is a good mix. We played around with all the different bits, to create different effects. We added tin foil in the mix, to help make the papercraft blocks conductive. The kids discovered paper is NOT conductive.



We made a switch using bits of tin foil and added some tin foil at the bottom of a crafting table. Every time you "placed" the crafting table something happening in our circuit.

We attached a papercraft pig to the servo's mechanical arm using some loom band elastics which turned our Minecraft pig into a swinging animal knocking down boxes.



In our snow biome papercraft kit, we had some ice blocks. We placed the bar graph bit with its LEDs inside the box. It created an appealing eerie look to our Minecraft world. Here I wished the Rule the Room kit had some wire extenders so that we could move the light further from the Makey Makey bit.


Our whole Minecraft playground used the Makey Makey. We experimented with different things, and the kids really enjoyed the experience. They made a switch using two boxes, which we used in our next idea!




Minecraft Game with littleBits

The Make Makey bit can be used as an external keyboard on your computer / laptop by connecting it with a power bit using the USB cable provided in the kit. The functionality is limited to only 3 outputs and you have to select between space / click for the input.

We thought is may be fun to use a physical block to place virtual blocks in the Minecraft game. We wrapped some tin foil around two papercraft Minecraft blocks. We attached the one crocodile clip to each block, making sure to make a good connection with the tin foil. You have to clip one wire to the "earth" on the Makey Makey bit and the other to the space/click input.



In Minecraft, check your settings and change the "pick / place a block" to "button 1". Now when you place one physical papercraft block on the other (making sure the tin foil touches) you will place a block in your game! How neat is that!?





24 days of Scratch coding book cover and cute penguin
Name

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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children: Rule Your Minecraft Room with littleBits
Rule Your Minecraft Room with littleBits
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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children
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